


You're My Sugar Rush

by nohyuck



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Candy Shop, M/M, Slice of Life, Time Skips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-06
Updated: 2018-05-06
Packaged: 2019-05-02 21:01:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14553441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nohyuck/pseuds/nohyuck
Summary: To Donghyuck’s dismay, it’s Halloween.





	You're My Sugar Rush

**Author's Note:**

> me: going✈️nohyuck  
> n: finally some good fucking food
> 
> [♫](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5uQMwRMHcs) : instant crush - daft punk

Lee Donghyuck is not a morning person. Off the top of his head, he could think of approximately 547 reasons why his day would be better spent in his room, the curtains were drawn tight around his windows, with his laptop being the only source of light in the room, and that would be on a bad day. Just the thought of waking up at an ungodly hour of the morning (which he usually considers to be anything before 1:00 pm) sends him diving for the protective shield of his blankets. He’s even entertained the idea of moving as far north as he possibly can more than fleetingly, to somewhere like Alaska where six out of twelve months of every year for him could be spent in complete darkness.

Unfortunately for his habit of not thinking things through, like his mother is always kind enough to point out, the other six months he’d be in complete daylight, and that sends him straight back to his room before his mother can scold him in another form of a not so witty remark. But when Donghyuck isn’t being the antichrist of the morning, the days that he decides to rise shockingly early from his crypt are spent working behind the cash register of his family’s candy shop. Or more like he’s being unfairly shanghaied into “child labour” in exchange for not nearly enough pay for his efforts, as he likes to say. (His father tells him to suck it up.)

Donghyuck can’t really say that he minds giving a hand to his parents every now and then. They’ve had the candy shop for as long as he can remember; the particular store is tucked into a tidy little nook of their neighbourhood’s main shopping district, not to mention being considered prime real estate. It’s been there for so long, in fact, that the homey shop front looks quite out of place in comparison to its glitzy neighbours, who offer all sorts of expensive luxuries that Donghyuck was never really interested in any way. And it seemed like the children, clutching to their parents’ hands as they get ferried up and down the busy city streets share similar sentiments, being attracted to the candy-filled display as opposed to glittering jewellery, brand name purses, or eccentric bottles of designer fragrances of which are common amongst others around it.

In recent years, _Candy Corner_ had gained enough buzz that Donghyuck’s parents were able to expand it by three full stores. He was delighted by the fact that they were doing so well for themselves, but more stores meant a shortage of workers, and Donghyuck knew that they weren’t going to trust their store to just anyone who came along looking for a part-time job. In the end, it would be left up to Donghyuck to tend to the original shop, while his parents routinely made trips to the other ones to supervise the supplementary staff.

So when Donghyuck rises at the ass crack of dawn, he forces himself to rub the sleep from his eyes and reminds himself that his efforts are for a greater good, as cliché as it sounds, and hey, would his parents really notice if he swiped a piece of candy or two throughout the day? (The answer to that is actually yes, but if it’ll get him to work once in awhile, Donghyuck’s parents think they can let it slide.) But secretly, he hopes one day that the kids he’s so used to seeing are escorted by an attractive older sibling, close to his age of 18, to be his eye candy.

 

* * *

 

It’s early, and he’s grumpy, and the streets are too damn quiet for his liking, but Donghyuck makes his way to the shop. The sun is just barely peeking up over the horizon and there might as well have been a zombie apocalypse the night before, similar to the ones Donghyuck is used to surviving through in his video games, with how little people there are around, starting their day alongside him. But he trudges on, in spite of the very, very long day ahead of him.

Running the shop on his own is no joke. Donghyuck finds this one of the very first times he does it on his own. He comes to realize that the shop always has a steady stream of customers at three peak points of the day; in the mornings, when mothers are with their children, too young for school, who want to get their shopping (whatever that may entail) done as soon as possible to make it ahead of the crowds.

The second key time is the lunch hour, which usually stretches over about two full hours regardless, where the office workers take their breaks and frequent there for a sweet morsel with their meal. There are a few who return so often that Donghyuck has taken care to prepare their usual purchases in advance. He knows far too well how pressed for time most of these types of customers are, so it not only helps them by popping in and out to return to their schedules considerably faster but its caused productivity and sales to increase so much that it’s a practice implemented at the other locations of the small chain. Of course, Donghyuck takes all the credit for that.

The third part of the day that brings in business to the store is around the time the elementary and secondary schools get dismissed for the day. Most of the time, the children don’t buy much, and Donghyuck doesn’t have the heart to turn them away when they come to stare at the brightly coloured displays, mouths watering at the mountains of sweets that are just out of their reach. If it were his parents in the store, he knows they would have scolded them, chasing them home in favour of doing schoolwork and studying. But he can’t help but smile when he comes out from behind the register to give a giggling little group of nine-year-olds a free sample of the new candy coming to the store the following week. Again, it not only makes him feel good to see the children waddle away, cheeks bulging with candy-filled smiles, but they usually come back with their parents to buy the newest treat they had tried that previous week. (And he has his own little victories apart from those dealing with the shop, too.

He remembers in particular, the most recent White Day. Though he hadn’t received any chocolates from any of the cute girls in school he had his eyes on in his class, during the afternoon rush of school children, he showed up to his shift to be greeted by a pleasant surprise. Not only had he arrived to find around a half dozen small bundles of chocolate left on the register attached to notes addressed with his name, but throughout his shift, he was approached with about eight more small parcels from the bolder young girls, who wanted to receive his praise for their gift directly. Most of his gifts had the unmistakable label “Candy Corner”, but what better excuse did he have to eat his parents’ homemade chocolate, as well as for free. To Donghyuck’s dismay, his stomach brutalizes him later on for scarfing down all of his chocolate in one sitting. Donghyuck is convinced it’s undeserved karma.

Needless to say, Donghyuck’s natural knack for aiding in customer satisfaction makes his parents proud. However, every advantage he has comes with its own drawbacks, today being one of them. He is indeed on his own, going so far as to open the shop all by himself as well. It wasn’t often that his parents gave him a shift quite so early in the morning, usually relegating use of the early morning hours for his studies (which now, were online classes, as opposed to the tutor that would come every day to homeschool him), but today also isn’t like most days.

To Donghyuck’s dismay, it’s Halloween.

He tries to convince himself that he doesn’t really hate the holiday, per say, as he unlocks the front door of the shop with the set of keys his mother had lent him that morning. The holidays meant more business for the shop, and especially for one like Halloween, the number of younger visitors increased. But it’s more or less that the holidays make Donghyuck wistful in a way that spending time with his family never could quite cure.

Growing up in an environment where his life revolves around being or working at his parents’ shop, which only works out because Donghyuck’s parents bring the school to him instead of bringing him to the school, doesn’t leave him much time to expand his inner circle, (even his cellphone pathetically has only 3 contacts; his mom, dad and the main shop’s business line.) _Candy Corner_ practically is his social life outside of conversing with his family. Donghyuck wouldn’t exactly consider himself friendless, but thinking it over, he’s not sure that the ten-year-olds who visit the shop on occasion to talk about anime count for much.

Brooding quietly and promising himself that the next time a group of kids come in, he would keep their relations strictly business oriented, Donghyuck dips his hand into the closest candy jar within reach once his jacket lays draped over the coat rack by the entrance. It isn’t quite time to open shop for the morning, which gives Donghyuck all of the time he needs to goof around, cough, tend to the tasks expected of him for that day. Fetching his apron from the back, he sets down the candy in his hand onto the front counter to tie the strings around his waist, smoothing out the wrinkles so that his name, neatly embroidered in red, is readable along the pocket of the fabric. When he looks over at the counter, he realizes that that small, circular item he had snagged from the candy jar was a lollipop. It’s one of the organic ones, a dark shade of red and pomegranate flavoured, in clear wrappers that just so happen to be environmentally friendly; the only person who really likes them being Donghyuck. A box of them had arrived a few years ago as a mistake. The Lee’s wouldn’t consider themselves healthy living pushers by any accord, considering their choice of business, but that very same year, when it seemed as though that specific brand of candy was practically sprouting legs and walking itself off the shelves, they couldn’t resist restocking.

For that, Donghyuck is thankful because without those teeth-rotting, sweetened orbs of condensed sugar, he would have never met his first (and probably only) friend. It’s quite the shame that they lost touch; Donghyuck is surprised that he even remembered it from so long ago, and so suddenly at that. Carefully removing the transparent cellophane wrapper preventing him from enjoying his sweet, he makes his way back over to the door, reversing the plastic Closed sign to read Open. Donghyuck hums softly as he closes his lips around the lollipop, recalling the memory of a light tanned, sharp-faced boy with a permanent pout in his plush pink lips that had run into the store breathless and alone on a similarly icy day from a few years back…

 

* * *

 

Donghyuck stares out the shop’s large front window, looking longingly outside as a layer of fresh white snow continues to dust the ground. He smiles to himself, having not expected it to snow today; it’s a pleasant surprise nonetheless. The storm had blown in quite suddenly. It starts literally moments after he arrives at the shop, in time to help his mother with the afternoon rush of customers, filing in by the dozens for a moment of warmth and naturally a pound of miscellaneous sweets or two. Now, most of those people have hurried off to their homes, driving away before the roads become slick with the dangers of melted snow or unseen ice. Donghyuck finds it more enjoyable studying those who choose to walk the streets instead of taking refuge in their cars. His mother calls it people-watching (and apparently it’s considered something of a bad habit, not that Donghyuck actually cared) when he gazes out the window with bright eyes at those lugging their massive packages, traipsing toddlers along, connected at the hip by a little hand clasped around the corner of their parents’ coats, wondering what ridiculous amount of money they had decided to waste today.

Sometimes, Donghyuck would create his own stories for them, too; what they worked as, who they were married to, where they were from, every part of their history and future down to the most minuscule detail. But, the one thing that he keeps consistent, even if they walk the streets with no child in tow, is that he gives them one. They’re always about his age, no older than 11, and it doesn’t usually matter whether they’re a boy or a girl.

If that day, he decides the child should be a girl, he gives her a soft, round face, long black hair with bright eyes that curve up into little crescent moons when she smiles (like his mom’s), and laughter that tinkles like wind chimes in a gentle breeze. She’s clothed in lacy dresses every day that fall down to her knees and laughs at all of his jokes, even if they’re about the less pleasant things an 11-year-old boy can think of, like farts. Maybe one day they’d grow up and realize they have always been in love, like those best friends in the dramas Donghyuck watches frequently with his mom on their days off.

But if it wasn’t a little girl, Donghyuck is perfectly satisfied with another boy, one who likes the same video games as he does. He’d have to be a bit older; Donghyuck has always wanted someone other than his cousins to call hyung. Either way, they would be friends, Donghyuck waiting for them to finish school and come bursting through the candy shop’s doors to greet him and say-

“Donghyuck!” He sighs, hearing his mom call from the back. Turning to look towards the back, while perched precariously on a stool behind the counter, he sees his mother busy punching numbers into a calculator, pausing between clicks to scratch a number or two onto the chart laid on the table in front of her. Once, Donghyuck had tried to do them for her, knowing how much she put her eyes to strain to stare at the small font of the inventories and receipts from earlier purchases. The next morning, when his mother looked over his work and realized that there was ten thousand dollars’ worth of candy missing, he was banned from even counting without a calculator while he was working.

“Yeah, mom?” he replies, voice barely carrying to the back of the shop.

“It’s time to close shop!” Close shop, aka it’s time for Donghyuck to straighten all the jars on the shelves, lock the register, sweep the floor, and an abundance of any other tiresome chores his mom could think of him to complete while she spends her time updating the shop’s records. As he turns the jars with their labels facing front, Donghyuck wishes he could just go outside in the snow already. A sigh plays across his lips as transparent glass jar clinks against its neighbours while being turned.

Donghyuck can feel his focus slipping each time his hand grips the rim of the jar, not worrying about spreading germs; his mom only fills the jars on the lower levels with the wrapped candies anyway, leaving the rest higher up or beside the counter, with wide red scoops emblazoned with _Candy Corner_ debossed into the plastic sitting atop the sweets. He steals a few lollipops from the next jar as he makes a pass over, stuffing them into the pocket of his apron and taking no notice of the jingling bell above the entrance meant to signal the arrival of a customer until a rush of icy air knocks the breath from his lungs.

Without looking up, in the most professional, non-breathless voice he can manage, he starts, “I’m sorry but we’re close-” For a second time that day, the air leaves Donghyuck’s body in a rush. But, it’s not because of the cold. When he does indeed look up, Donghyuck is face to face with a boy, who by the looks of it, is close in age to him. (Face to face for Donghyuck being about two meters away, but who’s counting.) He doesn’t seem to notice Donghyuck off in the corner of the store with his hand glued to the jar of lollipops he had swiped from before, more preoccupied with warming up his hands. Donghyuck thinks that they’d probably be the same height if they stood next to each other as he creeps closer, staying low behind the maze of displays surrounding him.

The boy looks noticeably cold, little hands rubbing together to create friction for warmth as he hovers by the door, puffing a short breath of warmer air to help thaw him out between rubs. Donghyuck wonders where his winter clothes are, noting that the boy is without a scarf, hat, or even proper mittens when he moves behind a display near the door, close enough to get a decent look at him. He isn’t quite the little boy that Donghyuck had imagined him being. If anything, he looks more like the little girl Donghyuck envisions, sans the long hair he naturally attributes to girls having, waves lengthy enough to be tamed in neat little plaits at the back of their head. At least Donghyuck is somewhat certain that the unexpected guest is a boy. His full, pink lips and sharp face coated with a clean and soft complexion that can make Donghyuck waver, however, because there has never been a boy to walk into the shop that was as pretty as the one standing in front of him at that very moment.

The cherubic little face is framed by a wavy black hair, (adding further to Donghyuck’s ‘may be a girl’ theory), that seems to bother the other as he continuously pushes his bangs out of his eyes. And a rather adamant push of his bangs gives the little stranger enough visibility to see Donghyuck peering over at him from behind a rotating rack of rock candies, shaped to imitate a rainbow. For a moment, they are both suspended in staring at each other, not knowing who would make the first move. The boy is a touch quicker than Donghyuck.

“What’re you looking at?” he snaps, uncaring of his tone despite the fact that he’s technically the one trespassing.

Donghyuck loses his voice for a moment, shocked by the harshness coming from such a delicate-looking person. (Or maybe he was just a bad judge of character.)

“Well,” the boy repeats in the same grumpy tone, inching closer to a gape-mouthed Donghyuck. “Is there something on my face, huh?”

“I…no,” Donghyuck stammers, stepping out a bit further from his hiding spot. “But I could ask you the same question!” It’s not the best comeback ever, Donghyuck realizes after he’s said it. But what did it matter if it made sense! The boy, no matter how sickeningly cute he is, isn’t supposed to be there and it’s Donghyuck’s job to kick him out.

“I wasn’t staring,” the boy retorts. In a flash, Donghyuck notices his body language change, all of the bark gone from the bite he never had to begin with.

“I was though,” Donghyuck admits, voice lowering. “But only because you looked cold. You’re really not supposed to be here because we’re closed, but if you’re cold, my mom’s in the back and she can make you some-”

“No!” The boy’s cheeks turn bright red, eyes opening wider than a deer stuck in headlights before Donghyuck can even finish his offer. He realizes his rudeness though, hanging his head to stare are his feet while wringing his hands nervously behind his back. “I can’t…my momma doesn’t allow me to take anything from strangers,” he explains. “Even from little kids.”

Donghyuck frowns at the rejection, even though he understands that rule all too well. He decides not to argue, but he doesn’t feel right letting the boy leave empty-handed.

“How about some candy then?” Donghyuck offers, fishing out the lollipops he had pocketed earlier from inside his apron. “They’re wrapped and from the shop here, so it’s allowed right?” The boy chews his bottom lip, biting the skin pink in worry. “Think of it like a free sample,” Donghyuck continues, fanning the three lollipops out to give the boy a choice.

“You won’t get in trouble?” he asks, eyeing the selection hesitantly. “I don’t have any money to pay for it, though.”

“Don’t worry about it, really,” Donghyuck shrugs. “I snag candy from here all the time, my parents don’t notice it.”

“Your parents own this place?” the boy asks incredulously, pausing to take in the entire shop.

Admittedly, Donghyuck is impressed by how awesome he feels when he gets to tell people that ask that he’s the son of the people who started the shop. It helps his parents too because when he sits with his mom or dad at the register, the little old ladies coo over what a “sweet little boy” he is and buy more candy if he lets them pinch his cheeks.

“Yeah they do,” he nods in confirmation. “And one day it’s going to be all mine!”

The boy makes a quiet “oh” with his mouth, eyes still trained on the shelves that climb higher than both boys can reach. Any way you looked, the arrangement is more than appealing to the eye, the coloured candies arranged to complement their neighbours. Wrapped candies in surplus and able to fit into jars line the shelves at the bottom, low enough to be reached by the occasional curious hand. The rest that don't have their own personal packaging sit on the higher shelves in hinged containers, waiting to be stuffed into little plastic bags tied closed with silver twist ties. Each container is filled to a comfortable fullness, not quite high enough to spill over, but at a level that can be comfortably reached without having to dive a hand all the way to the bottom.

In this one store, there are more sweets than the boy could name, (Donghyuck can, but it comes with the territory) even with the little pink stickers that label each jar with what’s inside. Some are in foreign languages he can’t quite make out, but it doesn’t matter because everything from the peppermints to the caramels, the saltwater taffies to the Jolly Ranchers, chocolate covered pretzels and cherries, gumballs, jawbreakers, gummy worms, sour straws, jelly beans, pop rocks, gumdrops, chocolates, and of course, lollipops, look like they would be heaven in his mouth. He makes a mental note to himself to come back on his birthday when he has enough money saved to splurge.

“No way,” he says to Donghyuck sceptically, shoving his hands in the pockets of his tattered pants and tearing his eyes away from the displays to look back at him. “How are you going to be able to run this big shop by yourself? You don’t look very smart seeing as you let in a stranger after closing time!”

“For your information, I-”

“Donghyuck!” Again, Donghyuck gets cut off mid-sentence, not having the chance to finish before he hears rustling behind the voice calling him, coming from the back of the store. He doesn’t have to look to know that his mother is probably done with her work and is a mere second away from coming to the front, to not only find that he hasn’t really done a stitch of work, but he’s entertaining someone who isn’t a customer after hours and offering him candy for free. No matter how Donghyuck looked at it, the boy had to leave now.

Before the boy can react, (or protest, which is the more likely of the two situations), Donghyuck closes his first around one of the lollipops, keeping his hand over the other’s to make it stay balled before shooting him a pleading look towards the door. Thankfully, he gets the message, both boys shuffling as quietly as they can to the door and pulling it open just enough for him to slip out passed Donghyuck, unnoticed by anyone else.

“Donghyuck, why is the door open?” Donghyuck’s mother asks, walking to the front while folding up her apron. She gives him a look that says something more along the lines of “you’d better not be up to anything stupid” as opposed to one of genuine curiosity.

“Just looking at the snow, mom,” he replies, sticking his head out the door. Looking both ways, the boy is nowhere in sight, gone as quickly as if he disappeared into thin air.

“Well, put on your coat,” she says, starting to pull on her own, fingers pulling the buttons through their loops down the front. “You don’t want to catch a cold.”

“Yes mom,” Donghyuck says, letting the door close with a faint jingle of the bell attached to its top. It’s only then he realizes he forgot to ask the boy’s name.

 

_//_

 

The next morning, Donghyuck walks, rubbing his eyes and clinging to his mother’s arm as she all but drags him with her to the shop. He hadn’t slept well that night, his dreams plagued by a pretty boy with full lips and thin clothing, playing with a dark red lollipop between his teeth. It isn’t like Donghyuck at all to wake up remembering his dreams, so it alarms him that this one does. Part of him hopes that this isn’t his subconscious trying to tell him that everything that happened the day before was from a combination of his imagination and desperation for a companion. Because, well, that would totally suck. He’s herded into the shop and grasping a broom for dear life before he can open his eyes, swaying on his feet under the haziness of sleep.

All Donghyuck knows he has to do is get through the day, and before he knows it, he can be on his way home to that new gaming system his grandmother had sent him in the mail as an early Christmas present and- Donghyuck’s head jerks up from sleepily lolling against his shoulder when he hears an incessant tapping noise against glass. His eyes immediately move to the large picture window at the front of the shop, falling on the figure wiping away at the condensation with a gloved hand. The person peers through the now defogged window, hands cupped over his eyes to form makeshift binoculars, and Donghyuck realizes, to his immense shock, that it’s the boy from the previous night, pink lips and all. Donghyuck can still hear the faint tapping, surprised that the boy hadn’t seen him, let alone come in to get him, as his lets the broom fall with a clatter to the floor, neglecting to re-zip his jacket before running outside again.

The bell above the shop’s door jingles as Donghyuck throws it open with enough force for it to slam against the wall behind it in his rush to get outside. He stands up straight, smiling almost a little too breathlessly when the boy flinches slightly from the loud noise the crashing of the door makes.

“Hi,” Donghyuck says uncertainly, realizing he hadn’t really thought about where this conversation was going. The boy didn’t seem to mind, however, moving away from the window to stand closer. Face to face, Donghyuck grins inwardly, having been right about them both being the same height, not that it really mattered.

“Hi,” the boy greets in return, shyly chewing on his bottom lip. “I…I came by to say thank you for yesterday. You know, letting me stay and stuff…and for the candy.” Donghyuck shakes his head dismissively, giving the other a lopsided smile. He tries hard to fight the embarrassment of being appreciated, but his face betrays him, colour not so subtly creeping up into his cheeks and spreading across the rest of his complexion.

“I-it was nothing really,” he stammers, rubbing a hand against the back of his neck as he hangs his head. “My mom says it’s good to be nice to everyone…good karma or something…” The boy shifts on his feet, the tip of his shoe indenting in the small pile-up of snow still on the ground from last night.

“Well, that’s not the only reason I’m here, yanno.” Donghyuck looks back up at him, heart thudding in his chest at the other possible reasons he had returned. Obviously it’s not just to buy candy; otherwise, the two would be inside and not standing in front of the shop, dancing around on their tiptoes to keep warm.

“It’s not?”

“No,” the other answers simply with a brief shake of his head. “I kinda owed you an apology, too. I was kinda mean when I saw you staring at me, but that was only because I thought I would get in trouble and if I got in trouble again, my momma said she wasn’t going to let me go out by myself anymore and-”

“I’m Donghyuck,” Donghyuck blurts, breaking the stream of unneeded explanations and apologies. Before he could be abandoned without asking again, he continues, insistent upon an answer. “What’s your name?”

“My name?” the boy says, unable to hide the twinge in his voice as if the request is something beyond ridiculous. “I’m…. Jeno.”

“Jeno,” Donghyuck repeats, unable to stop the smile that breaks across his face, even when Jeno raises a questioning eyebrow at him. “Jeno. It’s nice to meet you, I’m Donghyuck.”

“You’re kinda dumb, aren’t you?” Jeno chuckles, flicking Donghyuck’s forehead. The other winces at the action, rubbing at the abused area with the heel of his hand. “You already said that.”

“Don’t flick my forehead!” Donghyuck says, trying to raise his voice threateningly, only to be impeded by it cracking, damn puberty. He tries to speak over Jeno’s laughter. “For all you know, I could be your hyung!”

“Doubt it,” Jeno says confidently, crossing his arms over his chest. “Not unless you were born in March of 2000 or earlier. I’m an April baby.” He gives Donghyuck a wicked grin as if being born in April was something to be jealous of (Donghyuck doesn’t think it is). And Donghyuck would have shot him down, had Jeno not been right about being the older of the two of them.

But he couldn’t complain; maybe he’d finally be getting the hyung he’d always dreamed of.

“You’re weird,” Jeno says suddenly, bringing Donghyuck back to earth from his cloud of thoughts. “I like you.”

“So does this mean we’re friends?” Donghyuck asks eagerly, bouncing on his heels and all too excitedly clasping his hands in front of him. Jeno pauses for a moment, looking Donghyuck up and down as if sizing him up.

In any other situation, Donghyuck would have felt properly scrutinized, but the endless buzz in his head of friend friend friend friend overpowers what little ability he has to think properly. But, at any rate, Jeno just nods.

“Yeah, we’re friends.”

After that, Donghyuck calms down a bit. In passing, he wonders how Jeno is able to spend the entire day with him, as they both find miscellaneous things to do throughout the day to keep each other occupied, whether it involves Jeno helping Donghyuck with his chores, running up and down the street in a two-man game of cops and robbers, or Donghyuck’s mom coaxing them inside for a warm drink and some lunch so they both didn’t die of pneumonia. From what Donghyuck knows, someone homeschooled in the method that his parents provide to him is something very hard to find because of how much money went into it. Donghyuck isn’t one to pass judgment, but the memories of Jeno running into the shop for warmth that his clothes couldn’t provide didn’t exactly scream “privileged” to him.

But, it wouldn’t have mattered to Donghyuck if Jeno was a prince or a pauper; he finally had a friend. Later on, before Jeno has the chance to run off to wherever it is that he lives, (Donghyuck thought that it would be a little too soon to ask), Donghyuck presses another lollipop into the older boy’s hand, just like he had done the night before. It’s the same flavour that Donghyuck had dreamt about the night before, dark red in colour, pomegranate in flavour.

“What’s this for?” Jeno inquires, pointing it at Donghyuck before peeling off the wrapper.

“No reason,” Donghyuck says with a shrug, trying to match Jeno’s effortless nonchalance. He twirls his own lemon lollipop in his mouth, clacking it across the ridges of his teeth. “Think of it like a-”

“Free sample,” Jeno finishes with a shy smile, pushing his own lollipop into his mouth. He leaves it to rest on his tongue for a moment, letting the flavour gather there before pulling it out again to talk with a small pop.

“It’s the same flavour you gave me yesterday. How did you know I liked it?”

“I didn’t,” Donghyuck admits. He has no plans on telling Jeno that his selection had been based on a dream from the night before; it’s no reason to get Jeno weirded out because Donghyuck lacks basic social skills.

“Lucky guess then.” He’s the first to stand from the patch of the sidewalk that he and Donghyuck had cleared of snow before sitting down to relax. “See you tomorrow, then. Same time, okay?”

And before Donghyuck can answer, Jeno is gone.

 

_//_

 

Thinking back on it, Donghyuck knows that Jeno had kept his promise, for the most part. He had come back the day after their first real day as friends, and the next, and the next, and the next, and for many more days past of that. The pattern continued for what felt like ages for Donghyuck, each day ending with the duo eating a lollipop together as it wound down. Back then, neither of them really had any sense of time; some days Jeno would arrive too early or leave too late, on others, Donghyuck would think he had more time to sleep than he actually did and end up being late to meet his friend outside the shop.

At the time, Donghyuck’s mother had also been extremely happy that her son was finally able to make a friend, despite the rather odd circumstances in which the two spent time together. If Donghyuck was happy, so was she and she wasn’t about to ruin that for him because of a few lollipops he had given away to show his affection.

But one day, Jeno stops coming. His daily visits stop almost as suddenly as the way Jeno had fallen into Donghyuck’s life. At first, Donghyuck had seen no reason to be alarmed; maybe Jeno was sick, maybe he had a cold, maybe he had finally started school (Donghyuck never did bother to find out what month the school term for the children his age started).

However, he started wondering as the days went on without so much as a phone call. Hell, Donghyuck wouldn’t even have minded if Jeno stopped by for a minute to tell him that he couldn’t stay that day, as long as he stopped feeling an overwhelming sense of being abandoned. In the end, his efforts were wasted, because no matter how many days he waited at their spot on the curb, no matter how many pomegranate lollipops in clear cellophane he left on the side for Jeno to collect when he finally came around, Donghyuck knew deep down that he wasn’t coming back.

It was a huge blow for Donghyuck to finally accept; he wondered if the pain and disappointment was a feeling anywhere near the same as the one he’d have if an elephant had decided to sit on his chest. At some point, Donghyuck had stopped talking about Jeno altogether, pushing the existence of his only friend/ex-friend to the back of his mind, left to be dredged up if Donghyuck should find himself laid out on a plush leather daybed in some psychiatrist’s office somewhere in the distant future.

 

* * *

 

But that was then, and Donghyuck’s here and now consists of swarms of children slathered in costume makeup and mismatched articles of costume clothing, with the bell that still hangs above the door chiming frequently enough to be background music to the entrance of every trick-or-treater. Keeping in the spirit of the holidays, Donghyuck dresses up in costume too. Putting this foundation he bought, only realising it was one too many shades lighter than his actual skin complexion, and convenient set of false canines to use, fashioning a cape out of two of his mother’s old black and red nylon skirts to complete his ghoulish vampire look.

His mother did not hesitate to shoot him down the previous day, when he had asked her if he could wear the getup for his entire shift (“The other customers will feel uncomfortable!” she had said), so he’s forced to rush to the back between the end of the busy lunch hour and the start of children beginning to be dismissed from school.

By that point, Donghyuck gets so busy with the influx of trick-or-treaters, the only thing that brings him to a screeching halt from automated response of dropping a small pre-made candy bag with a  _Candy Corner_ business card tucked safely inside, is an older, much deeper voice calling out the familiar Halloween greeting: “Trick or Treat.”

Donghyuck rises slowly, trying to get a good look at the feet on the opposite side of the register before he’s standing up to his full height. His instinct tells him to be wary in case this weirdo was trying to rob him, (of candy, money, who knows). But a couple of weeks ago, Donghyuck’s instinct had also told him to drink the milk in his refrigerator at home to see if it was still good instead of simply looking for the expiration date on the carton. Needless to say, that had been a horribly bad decision, and Donghyuck is a little more willing to give this guy the benefit of the doubt when he spots another pair of legs in white stockings and pink ballet slippers laced up to the knee hovering behind his. Looking up, he is face to face with an extremely gorgeous man and a little girl clinging tightly to his back. The man doesn’t quite look old enough to be her father, considering she looks to be about only 9 or 10 years old herself, but if he’s escorting her in her Halloween festivities, they’re obviously pretty close.

“For my sister,” he says, gesturing to the timid little girl behind him as if he could read Donghyuck’s mind. “She’s a little shy.”

Donghyuck nods at him, probably taking a bit longer than he should to admire his bone structure; a sharp jawline with a modest chin and cheekbones that girls probably hate him for, not complete without his pale lips that seem to pout on their own, regardless of expression. And his dark hair, coiffed just enough to keep small flyaway strands from hanging down in his face. And his complexion, coloured with a touch of soft brown as if he arrived at the shop straight off a plane from the beaches of Bermuda. And all of his face, simply as a whole…there’s something familiar about his face but Donghyuck doesn’t quite have the leisure to continue looking to ease the nervousness coiling in his stomach, breaking his staring before it gets weird to lean over the counter towards his younger sister.

“You’re the prettiest fairy I’ve seen all day,” Donghyuck compliments, taking in the glitter over her clothes and pink chiffon wings attached snugly to her back by a cleverly concealed wire frame underneath. The compliment is quiet enough for only her to hear, but it does the trick. She beams, holding out the candy bag she had been hiding behind her back for Donghyuck to add to the already growing stash.

Her older brother looks between the two of them, eyes widened in what is unmistakably shock. He looks at Donghyuck with a sly grin, gently patting the top of his sister’s head with a flat palm. “How did you do that? She hasn’t gotten her own candy all day.”

“Mind control,” Donghyuck explains simply. “Haven’t you watched a vampire movie before? They’re pretty accurate.”

The other laughs and Donghyuck is glad that he said what he did, feeling rewarded by his amusement. “So, what’s your costume?” Donghyuck asks, insistent on getting in as much conversation as possible before they leave.

Something about the man strikes him as too familiar to just let their interaction slide before Donghyuck can figure it out. In his head, he urges himself not to sound too eager; with the fangs, the faster he spoke, the more of a lisp he would have. Again, Donghyuck is met with a look of surprise once more.

“What makes you think I’m dressed up?” he challenges, raising a questioning eyebrow at him. “But if you really need to know, I’m dressed up as a responsible teenager.”

When Donghyuck doesn’t have a comeback, (that leaves out the phrase “your mom” of course), taking a long pause, the man flushes pinker than his sister's costume, waving a hand.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles, rocking on his heels embarrassedly. “That was rude.”

Donghyuck pays no mind, leaning back over to grab another candy bag from the box sitting behind the counter, holding it gently between two fingers by its twist tie. Really, as long as he got to talk to this handsome stranger for as long as possible, he could care less about the growing line of impatient children behind the siblings at the counter.

“Want one?” He shakes his head, putting up a hand to stop Donghyuck politely.

“I’m not a huge fan of chocolate, honestly. It’s bad for my skin.”

“Then how about one of these instead,” Donghyuck offers, holding up a handful of lollipops he had stashed behind the register in the off chance a child with a chocolate allergy wanted to take part in the holiday festivities. The girl’s brother eyes them for a moment, looking at them with a glint in his eyes that Donghyuck can’t quite place before reaching his hand out to take the only blood red one in the bunch. Pomegranate.

He tips it towards Donghyuck in thanks, taking a moment to unwrap it before starting to enjoy it, fitting it into his mouth in the space between his teeth and the inside of his cheek.

“By the way,” he says, momentarily removing the lollipop out of his mouth to spin it between his fingers, leaning slightly closer than Donghyuck thinks is necessary for casual conversation. “Those fangs you’ve got there? They fit you, yanno, they bring out your lisp.”

Donghyuck isn’t really sure that the comment about his fangs (or his lisp for that matter) is a compliment, but the burning in his cheeks as the other turns to leave, an arm circled protectively around his sister’s shoulders, tell him otherwise. Once the day is over, and the trick-or-treaters have stopped arriving in drones, as is per the norm, Donghyuck is left to clean up shop. Luckily, there isn’t much for him to do, considering that everyone had come in only for the free candy; Donghyuck thinks that only fools buy candy on Halloween if they aren’t giving it out to kids. He picks up the broom balanced against a shelf towards the register and begins to sweep, collecting the bits and dust and debris from the outside in a neat little pile to be disposed of.

This time of day is always the loneliest for Donghyuck. It’s definitely different from the days that he could hear his mother typing away at her calculator from the back room, now that he’s old enough to be there on his own. He can almost hear the clacking of his mother’s shoes against the hardwood floor as if she was going to come to the front to get him so that they could walk home together. But, he also knows that it’s all in his head, the memories of spending quality time with his family at the shop exchanged without his permission for a bigger business and more money. And Donghyuck is alone.

“Um, hello?”

Or so he thinks.

“Glad I caught you before you closed up,” says a familiar voice, letting the door close behind him.

Really, Donghyuck can’t help but be slightly ashamed that he’s able to recognize the voice from earlier that day. Turning around, he sees that he’s right, and it is indeed the older brother of the girl dressed as a fairy that he had complimented during the rush of trick-or-treaters, standing in the doorway. He shakes head quickly, maybe to avoid looking Donghyuck directly in the eye after catching him off guard, but more likely because of the white flakes sticking in his now mussed hair and around his eyelashes.

“Snow,” he explains, noticing Donghyuck’s blatant attention to his hair and gestures towards it. “I think there’s a storm or something…but it’s the strangest thing. I’ve never seen snow so early in the season before.”

Donghyuck nods quietly, not trusting himself to do much else, but after a minute, he finds his voice.

“What can I help you with?” He leans the broom back against the shelves, giving his “customer” his full attention.

“I don’t think you remember me from earlier,” the other starts. “But I came in before with a little girl-”

“Dressed as a pink fairy, right?” Donghyuck finishes all too quickly. He can feel his palms getting sweaty, suddenly remembering that he still had his vampire cape tied around his neck in his nervousness, before pulling it off, hoping the other hadn’t noticed yet.

“Yeah, that’s my sister.” He pauses for a moment, trying to remember what he wants to say next. “I came back to ask if you had any more of those lollipops you gave me earlier. If you don’t mind, I’d like to buy you out of them.”

Donghyuck stops gaping long enough, not only out of shock that the handsome stranger is back but out of the fact that he wants to buy all the lollipops that usually everyone but Donghyuck refuses to touch. “Organic” products weren’t always appealing to the average person. However, he does as he’s asked, going to the back and returning with the only sealed, giant 20-pound bag of organic lollipops, placing it on the counter to be rung up.

“You must’ve really liked it then,” Donghyuck comments, taking the other’s credit card as its offered to him, swiping it through the appropriate machine. He nods slightly in reply, poking a hole into the plastic of the bag while Donghyuck finishes ringing up the transaction.

“I did. You actually gave me my favourite flavour…” Donghyuck returns the credit card, receipt pressed over it as he passes it back to the other, who pockets it promptly.

“I had no idea.”

“Lucky guess then?” A smile spreads across the stranger’s face, even though Donghyuck is fairly certain it was meant as a question. Damn those social cues again.

“I guess it was,” Donghyuck replies.

With a curt nod, not for a moment losing his smile, the stranger picks up the bag, heaving it over his shoulder with the side pierced with the hole facing upward. He stops midway to the exit, turning back around to face Donghyuck.

“I think I owe you these.” For once in his life, Donghyuck is grateful for his fast reflexes. He catches the two objects that come at him, spinning through the air before they can hit something that has the potential to break. Upon inspection, he sees that the objects are two lollipops; one lemon and one pomegranate.

It hits Donghyuck after he realizes that the stranger is long gone and he rushes to see the name on the copy of the receipt, unsurprised when the cardholder’s name reads: _Lee Jeno_.

 

* * *

 

After a long night of arguing, reprimanding, and beating himself up, all Donghyuck wants to do is spend his day in his room, because after everything, he still does not think he’s cut out for mornings. It sure as hell seems like he can barely function in the dead of night, even if he did beat his own zombie kill streak on one of the many dubious Xbox games he owns around 3 am.

He tries to play it sick, going the whole nine yards to try and convince his mother that he’s just not up to going in, but as expected, he doesn’t think things all the way through. (“Those red eyes are from being up too late without enough sleep, and if you really had a fever of 109°F, you’d be in a coma.”) She tells him to stop sulking, man up, and face whatever it is he’s trying to hide from.

But as Donghyuck closes his eyes and slams his head repeatedly against the granite counter that the register sits on, he knows that he’s not the one who’s hiding. It’s Jeno that won’t face him, apparently, unless he knows that Donghyuck will have no way of tracking him down once he does. Although, Donghyuck does play around with the idea that he could use his credit card information from the transaction to get to Jeno. Eventually, he quietly pushes it aside because not only will he seem like a stalker, but he’s pretty sure that it's more than just a toe over the line of what’s legal and what’s not.

Donghyuck is just glad that it’s a slow day because that way he can wallow in self-pity without anyone bothering him to buy something or-

“You’re slacking,” a deep voice whispers somewhere close to where Donghyuck thinks his ear should be. (Maybe he banged his head one too many times…)

“Jeno,” he murmurs quietly, looking up from the counter, his face mere inches away from Jeno’s.

“Took you long enough,” he says with a quiet chuckle, eyes on Donghyuck’s lips, and Donghyuck may be a little stupid, but he knows what Jeno wants. And that something is a something that Donghyuck hadn’t known he wanted back when they were kids, sharing lollipops and stories and running around tidying up candy jars or sitting and waiting for their hot chocolate to be cool enough to drink without scalding their tongues. He didn’t know he wanted it yesterday when Jeno had showed up at the store with his sister and teased him about his lisp or when he had come back later to make a huge purchase of candy that, (now that Donghyuck thought about it), there was no way he could finish on his own.

Donghyuck could only laugh at himself because he and Jeno had grown up to realize they’ve always been in love, just like those best friends in the dramas. Jeno leans in, but before he can meet Donghyuck’s lips, he comes in contact with his balled fist, stumbling back slightly. Now, Donghyuck is the one to bite his lip, looking at Jeno, mildly conflicted.

“Where did you disappear to?” he hears himself ask.

“When I was around here so often, it’s because my parents, my sister and I were living with my grandmother. All circumstances aside, by the time we had our place back, my mom kept me too wrapped up in schoolwork to do anything but eat, study, and sleep.”

There’s a pause when Donghyuck finds he has no good reason to be upset at Jeno anymore. “You’re weird. I like you.”

And this time, Donghyuck lets Jeno kiss him.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!  
> please give kudos (and a comment if you'd like) if you enjoyed it!


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